The Olympians And Heroes Read:The Lightening Thief
by Marauder101
Summary: The gods, with Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Nico and Grover read the PJO series and learn about their favourite demigod. My first fanfic so no flames please, constructive criticism is welcomed.
1. Chapter 1

The Olympians And Heroes Read: The Lightening Thief

Disclaimer: I do not own, do not claim to and never will own Percy Jackson.

A little Ooc

Chapter 1: I Accidently Vaporize My Maths Teacher

"Quiet!" Zeus thundered. "We have some demigods visiting us today" he said.

"Who are they?"asked Athena.

"They are Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace, Nico Di Angelo, Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood" he replied. Athena nodded.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and one by one the demigods filled the throne room. Immediately, Percy bowed to all the gods and the others followed his example.

"You wanted to see us" asked the Lord of the Sky.

"Yes father, you see, we found Percy's myth and wanted to know if you wanted to read with us" Thalia said to all the gods in general.

"Of course" said Hera though she didn't seem too thrilled about reading with demigods. Thalia took out the first book and asked "Who wants to read first?" "I do" said Poseidon immediately.

**Chapter 1: I Accidently Vaporize My Maths Teacher**

"Accidently? Is that even possible?" questioned Apollo.

**Look I didn't want to be half-blood.**

"Who does?" said Nico.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous.**

"So true," commented Thalia.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your****mom****or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

All the demigods snorted. Hades gave them a questioning look. "It's just Percy and advice do not go together" said Annabeth while Percy pouted.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous.**

"Yea it is," Hermes said.

**It's scary.**

"Usually."Apollo said.

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"Got that right," said Ares.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Why would mortals read this?" said Artemis curiously.

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages —if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before**_**they**_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"Percy giving GOOD advice?" said Nico.

"The world is coming to an end," added Grover.

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You didn't warn us!" shouted Hermes and Apollo while everyone snickered.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"No shit Sherlock!" said Nico earning a smack on his head from Thalia while Aphrodite grinned at them.

**I'm twelve years old.** **Until a**_**few**_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.** **Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes," said the friends in unison while Percy glared at them.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"See, you agree," said Annabeth.

**I could start at any point in my short, miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds like torture," said Poseidon.

Percy suddenly burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" asked Hades.

"You'll see" he gasped between snickers.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

The throne room filled with laughter.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, out Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"Chiron?"asked Hera.

"Yep"said Percy.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"You shouldn't sleep in any class" said Athena.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Really Percy" said Nico. Percy was about to reply but Poseidon continued reading so he settled for a glare.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"Of course you were" said Annabeth.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

The whole room burst into uncontrollable laughter.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

"Awesome!" Hermes and Apollo high-fived.

**And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.**

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Like that'll work" said Nico.

"A guy can hope" Percy said to him.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

Percy and Nico pretended to throw up.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Satyrs" said Dionysus rolling his eyes.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Stupid satyr" muttered Zeus.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation.**

"Boys" said Atremis.

**The headmaster had threatened me with death**

"What?" Poseidon shouted.

**The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"**I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"**That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Thank the gods" said Thalia.

"You're welcome" said Persephone and Demeter.

"**You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

Ares grinned.

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"You should eat more cereal" said Demeter while Annabeth looked at her as if she was crazy.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.** **He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.** **He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a**_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting,**

"We are pretty interesting" said Hermes.

**But everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

Hermes and Apollo had identical grins while Artemis glared at them.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was a devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.** **One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"One of my monsters no doubt" said Hades.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you**_**shut up**_**?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

"**Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"Of course it is," scoffed Dionysus.

"**Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

"**And he**_**did**_**this because…"**.

"**Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and— "**

"HOW DARE THIS BOY INSULT US!" thundered Zeus (A/N: sorry couldn't resist).

"He wasn't insulting us, he just made a mistake." Said Poseidon at once and Percy smiled at him.

"**god?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"There see."

"**Titan." I corrected myself. "And… he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"See, mother did always like me better" said Zeus while his brothers snarled at him.

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

"**Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"—**and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"BEACUSE WE ARE AWSOME," cheered Hermes, Apollo, and Ares.

**Some snickers from the group**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"**And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"**Busted," Grover muttered.**

"GO GROVER!" yelled Percy and Nico.

"**Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"**I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half-credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

Everyone laughed.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"He is very observant" said Annabeth.

"**You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

"**About the Titans?"**

"He is rather slow isn't he," said Athena.

Percy glared at her.

"**About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

"**Oh."**

"**What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"He still does" said Percy.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever**_**lived**_**, and their mother, and what god they worshiped.** **But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be**_**as good;**_**he expected me to be**_**better.**_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Oh, the poor dears they have such a hard time." Persephone said.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He probably was" sighed Dionysus.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

"Wonder what you're upset about" said Hades looking at his brothers.

**I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"You two are fighting again." groaned Hera.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from**_**that**_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"**Detention?" Grover asked.**

"**Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"THAT'S obvious," said Athena while Annabeth glared at her.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone laughed.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**

"Awwwww" said Demeter, Hera and Persephone.

**She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Aww." cooed the Aphrodite.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table. **

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"FIGHT!" Ares yelled.

"**Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

Percy and Poseidon grinned.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

"—**the water—"**

"—**like it grabbed her—"**

Zeus and Hades glared at Poseidon.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.**

"**Now, honey—"**

"**I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"It never is." Hermes said trying to lighten the mood.

"**Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

"**Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me.**_**I**_**pushed her."**

"Grover really is a great friend" said Annabeth.

"Sticks with you till the end" added Percy.

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

"**I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

"**But—"**

"**You—**_**will**_**—stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

"**It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

"**Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"I bet mine's better" said Ares.

"Is not"

"Is too"

"IS NOT"

"IS TOO"

"ENOUGH!" boomed Zeus.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"She better not hurt him," growled Poseidon glaring at Hades.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"Nope, that's not it" said Grover.

"Try again" added Nico.

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

Poseidon groaned.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"Finally, a fight," Ares leaning forward in his seat.

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…**

"**You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

"Get away with what?" frowned Dionysus.

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

"**We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

Hermes and Apollo grinned.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on**_**Tom Sawyer**___**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

They were beginning to LOVE him.

"**Well?" she demanded.**

"**Ma'am, I don't…"**

"**Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

Before anybody could move Poseidon had flew across the room and grabbed Hades. "HOW DARE YOU!"

It took all the gods to pull him of Hades.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

Aphrodite noticed that Annabeth sighed in relief.

"**What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.**_**Hisss!**_

Poseidon looked relived, while Hera and Demeter beamed at him, he was such a good father.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

"Was that before pens were invented," questioned Nico.

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic mushrooms?" snorted Dionysus.

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

"**Our**_**teacher**_**. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

"Satyrs are horrible liars" said Zeus.

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"See?" Dionysus said.

"**Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

"**Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"**The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"And that's the end of the chapter" said Poseidon.

"Poor kid" said Hera.

"I'm right here you know" said Percy.


	2. Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death

The Olympians And Heroes Read: The Lightening Thief

Disclaimer: I do not own, do not claim to and never will own Percy Jackson.

A little Ooc

Chapter 2: Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death

"Who wants to read next?" asked Poseidon.

"I will" said Annabeth. Poseidon tossed the book to her.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

"I think we're all used to weird experiences" said Grover.

**This twenty four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.**

"That sucks" commented Nico.

"Sure does" said Thalia.

**The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"I am a psycho" said Percy glancing at Nico.

"Me too" said Nico.

Apollo and Hermes snorted.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

"What made you think otherwise?" asked Artemis.

"What do you think?" smirked Percy.

**But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

"No offense Grover, but you're a horrible liar" Annabeth.

**Something was going on. Something**_**had**___**happened at the museum.**

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"Aw great, thanks for reminding me" said Percy pouting.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room.**

Poseidon glared at Zeus. If looks could kill, Zeus would be far from dead by now.

**A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.**

"Definitely creepy" said Thalia.

**One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

"What in Hades?" said Apollo and Hermes in unison while Hades frowned at his name being used as a curse.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time.**

"Isn't that how you usually feel?" said Nico.

Percy glared at him and Nicoshivered slightly.

**My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"Percy!" Poseidon reprimanded.

"Sorry Dad" said Percy.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

A few people snorted.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Aww that's sweet" cooed Aphrodite as did the other goddesses especially Persephone and Demeter.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Suddenly, the throne room started shaking rapidly. "Poseidon stop, we're experiencing an earthquake!" said Dionysus.

Zeus was shocked to see the confused look on Poseidon's face. Meanwhile Annabeth slapped Percy really hard.

He came back to his senses to see that everyone was staring at him.

"You have a powerful son" said Ares.

"That I do" said Poseidon proudly.

"Back to the book" said Thalia.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The**_**view**___**of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance,**

"Don't tell me you'd miss the river" said Annabeth incredulously.

Percy grinned at her sheepishly.

**the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

"I still miss those" said Percy and everyone stared at him as if he was insane.

"I told you he was a psycho" said Nico and got a pillow in the face.

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"You'd better" said Apollo.

"You realize you're talking to the book right?" asked Hermes.

Apollo did the mature thing and stuck his tongue out at him.

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the**_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology**___**across my dorm room.**

Athena glared at Percy._How dare he!_

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces.**

"Those are pretty confusing" said Nico and the others nodded in agreement.

**And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"It's not that hard" said Athena rolling her eyes.

"I'm dyslexic remember?" said Percy smugly.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

"That doesn't sound too comfortable," Hades said.

"It's not" said Ares.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes.**_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"Really Percy?" said Ares.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said**_**"...**___**worried about Percy, sir."**

"That's never good" said Grover.

"Sure isn't" said Thalia.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

**I inched closer.**

"Of course you did," Annabeth said rolling her eyes.

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the**_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and**_**they**___**know too—"**

"Do we finally get to know what's going on?" Dionysus said making everyone jump, they had completely forgotten he was there.

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

"Not the best thing you'd wanna hear" said Hades.

"It probably hurt more, considering that it came from Chiron," Aphrodite added.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—**_**"**_

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he**_**saw**___**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion.**

"He still beats himself up over that you know" said Nico.

"I know" said Thalia.

**"You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

"Not what I wanted to hear, exactly," Percy said shrugged.

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

"Now you're in for it," said Ares eagerly.

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"It could actually be an archer's bow, you know" said Persephone.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow**_**clop-clop-clop,**___**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

Annabeth let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Percy noticed this and smiled at her.

Aphrodite was grinning deviously.

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

Nico shivered at the thought.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

Apollo shook his head.

"You really need to lie better" said Hermes.

"True that" added Nico.

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"No point. They can read emotions," Zeus said.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole**

**thing.**

"Won't work" said Grover.

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"You're a demigod you're always in danger," Artemis pointed out.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

"Not good" said Athena.

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Can I hit her?" asked Ares.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"Man Chiron sucks at pep talks" said Poseidon shaking his head.

**My eyes stung.**

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"Probably not the best thing he could have said" said Hades.

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal,**

**Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

"That'll make him feel even worse" said Annabeth.

"It would make anyone feel worse" said Nico.

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.**

"Chiron sure know how to get you down" said Zeus.

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were**_**rich**___**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities.**

"Yeah but you're dad is a god," Poseidon said smugly.

**I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

All the demigods looked down. They all remembered feeling that way.

"Do you all feel that way?" asked Poseidon looking intently at Percy.

Nobody answered.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

Persephone and Demeter looked at him with pitying looks.

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to, was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Coincidence? I think not!" Nico yelled and Thalia smiled at him. Once again, Aphrodite did not fail to notice this.

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Don't joke like that Percy!" Poseidon, Thalia, Annabeth, and Grover yelled.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**** Grover's eye twitched. "How much**_**did**___**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"So basically the whole thing" said Nico.

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

**His ears turned pink. From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

"I was even more confused after he said that" said Percy.

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

The gods looked at Dionysus. "Why would you make the card in script when they ARE DYSLEXIC!" Athena and Artemis yelled.

**but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009**_

**"What's Half—?"**

"Don't say it out loud" said Hera while Demeter said "I told you he should have more cereal."

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

"He's not," Nico rolled her eyes.

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"That was a bit rude you know" said Grover.

"Sorry but it sounded really weird at the time" Percy replied.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

"I still kinda do," Percy admitted.

"Me too"

"Me three"

"Me four"

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended**_**me.**_

"So sweet," said Persephone while Ares rolled his eyes.

**"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

"That doesn't sound good," said Hades.

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there.**

"And no one will hear you scream," said Ares mischievously.

**On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

Poseidon gulped and Hermes and Apollo were chewing their nails nervously.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**.**___**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

Everyone paled.

Thalia was squeezing Nico's hand so tightly that it turned blue.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

"GET ON THE BUS!" yelled Annabeth, obviously worried.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

"Please don't be looking at him, please don't be looking at him," Poseidon muttered.

"Dad, I'm right here you know" said Percy.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"That's not funny, Percy. Not funny at all," Nico told his cousin. Percy chuckled.

"What's so funny?" asked Hades.

"Wait and see" he said.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

"Oh."

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"Listen to Grover, son."

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that**_**snip**___**across four lanes of traffic.**

Poseidon looked even more worried.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

No one said anything.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

"It was really creepy" said Percy.

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Annabeth gasped

"Annabeth, I'm right here you know" said Percy.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

"A lot of things" said Zeus.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"No, they are much, much, worse" said Hades.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you****saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

Annabeth whimpered.

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

"I can't believe you actually picked up on that," Thalia said.

"I'm not a complete idiot, you know" said Percy irritably.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

"**He was really starting to freak me out" said Percy.**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"You actually said something smart," Nico looked at him shocked.

Percy just rolled his eyes.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"He probably was" said Hades.

"On that happy note, who would like to read next?" Zeus asked marking the page and closing the book.

"I'll do it" said Hera.

Chapter 3: Grover Unexpectedly Looses His Pants

**A/N:** **Another chapter! I'll be uploading frequently. Probably every other day. Also, thank you so much ****for the reviews. They really helped to boost my confidence. Hope you like it and**

**REVIEW!**


	3. Grover Unexpectedly Looses His Pants

The Olympians And Heroes Read: The Lightening Thief

Disclaimer: I do not own, do not claim to and never will own Percy Jackson.

A/N: A little Ooc

Chapter 3: Grover Unexpectedly Looses His Pants

"Hera if you would please start reading," requested Zeus.

"Of course," she replied.

**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants**

Everyone but Percy shot curious looks at Grover who was staring at the floor as if it was a valuable treasure.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Percy…" groaned Poseidon.

"Sorry Dad but I was pretty weirded out at the time" Percy responded.

**I know, I know. It was rude.**

"See, I even feel bad about it" he continued.

**But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"It wasn't your fault" Thalia chided.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

Hades and Ares snickered at the knowledge of the satyr's nerves.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

At the mention of Sally, Poseidon sighed and had a dreamy looks at his face.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**

"So true" stated Annabeth.

"Couldn't agree more" Thalia added.

"Sure is" Nico continued.

"You've met her?" asked Artemis, as if by surprise.

All three of them nodded.

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

Nico and Thalia exchanged a look. Percy hated talking about his home life before Paul.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist,**

"A good career plan, what she sees in you Poseidon, is beyond my knowledge" remarked Athena.

**so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

Athena and Artemis looked saddened by her misfortune.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

At this Percy and Poseidon looked at each other and shared a smile and Aphrodite started to coo.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.**

**My mom doesn't like to talk about him because**_**it**___**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

"That's a good idea actually" laughed Persephone.

"She must really like cereal" added Demeter.

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"Clever" said Apollo.

"True" said Hermes grinning.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"Exaggerating much?" taunted Ares.

"I'll choose to ignore that comment" snapped Percy.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

"Ugh… I feel for you man, I really do" said Nico.

Annabeth looked slightly upset.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"You come home after a year and the first thing he does is ask you for money?" said Thalia, outraged.

**That was it. No**_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

"You know, after what I've heard about him, I would have probably died of shock if he'd said that" claimed Hades.

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

Artemis looked as if she was going to be sick.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"He'd better not have touched you" said Poseidon narrowing his eyes.

"He didn't" Percy confirmed.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

"That was actually pretty accurate" said Grover, snorting.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

**"Am I**_**right**_**?**_**"**___**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Disgusting" muttered Hera.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Absolutely revolting" commented Aphrodite.

"You're telling me" agreed Zeus.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home. **

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

"And that's saying something" declared Dionysus.

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone shuddered at the thought.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

"Aww" cooed all the goddesses and Percy tried his best not to look embarrassed.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

"That's because she understood what was happening better than you did at the time" noted Annabeth.

"I know" responded Percy, smiling at her.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Awesome!" exclaimed Hermes and Apollo.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"Cute" beamed Thalia.

"Will you stop?" said Percy, clearly annoyed.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

Everyone else was doing the same, excluding Zeus, Ares and Dionysus.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"I'm glad she found Paul" said Aphrodite.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

Annabeth rolled her eyes at Percy who was grinning sheepishly.

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Liar!" chorused Nico, Apollo and Hermes.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"She would have understood better than you thought" smiled Hera.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

"Stupid annoying jerk" muttered Poseidon along with a few choice words.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

"Maybe you should just punch him" sneered Ares.

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"That's just evil" said Aphrodite, horrified.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

At this, Percy and Grover started laughing uncontrollably.

Athena eyed them suspiciously.

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"Apologizes?" said Annabeth heatedly.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"Do it!" yelled Zeus and Hades, then realized what they said just as everybody started laughing.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"Probably was" said Nico smugly.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"Did she know what happened?" Athena asked.

"More than I thought she did," Percy shrugged.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

Again, Percy and Grover started to laugh at this.

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. **

**As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. **

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"Only you Percy, only you" said Poseidon shaking his head.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth shivered.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. I loved the place.**

"I do too" said Annabeth dreamily.

Aphrodite suddenly squealed and everybody turned to her.

"What?" she implored.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. **

**We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's up with the blue food?" asked Zeus.

"It'll be explained" replied Percy.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. **

**This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"Oh"

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"I will help this woman with her career" vowed Athena.

"Thank you Lady Athena" said Percy.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"He's pretty proud now" stated Annabeth.

"I am" confirmed Poseidon.

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

"Harsh" said Apollo.

"You think?" Percy snapped, clearly irritated.

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"It seems like he watched over you at least," Grover mumbled.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Of course not, Seaweed Brain," Thalia groaned. "I can't believe you asked her that."

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I**_**have**___**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"Understatement" muttered Grover.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

"Everything" commented Artemis.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"I cannot believe you sent a Cyclops to check up on me" whined Percy.

"Do you have any idea how freaked out I was"

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

The gods stared at Percy, shocked but he merely shrugged.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

Grover grimaced, thinking of what had happened that night.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

Everybody looked saddened by her words.

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

By now, most of the goddesses were sobbing.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed,**_** No!**_

"So you were already dreaming about Kronos back then," Annabeth muttered.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

"You two have got so stop fighting" said Hades, annoyed.

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

Percy stiffened thinking of what was going to happen next.

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"That was my first reaction" admitted Thalia.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"**___**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you**_**tell**___**her?"**

"It was pretty obvious that I wasn't going to tell her" argued Percy.

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Grover... how could you not have your pants on!" Nico exclaimed dramatically while the gods watched in amusement.

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before:**_**"Percy.**___**Tell me**_**now**_**!"**

"I still can't believe you didn't tell her" muttered Grover.

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

"Well, they are things to be scared of and your mom knows it," Annabeth said.

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you.**_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"Thank you for finally telling me about his feet," Nico said.

"That was the end of the chapter" said Hera, looking relieved to be over and done with it.

"Who wants to read next?" she asked.

"I'll do it" said Nico while Percy mock gasped, Nico just rolled his eyes at him.


	4. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

The Olympians And Heroes Read: The Lightening Thief

Disclaimer: I do not own, do not claim to and never will own Percy Jackson.

**A/N: I am soooooooooooooo ****sorry for the long wait, ****I wasn't feeling well and couldn't update. Anyway, Enjoy!**

Chapter 4: My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

"**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting" **Nico began.

"I didn't know your mom knew bullfighting Percy" said Nico.

"She doesn't" Percy told him and Poseidon suddenly paled.

"**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

**Every time there was a flash of lightning,"**

Poseidon glared at Zeus who scooted away from him.

"**I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants."**

"Cool, can you get me some?" cried Apollo, Hermes and Nico before bursting out laughing.

"**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal."**

Artemis looked utterly disgusted.

"**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.**

**"Watching me?"**

"That sounds weird on so many levels" stated Ares.

"You're telling me" Percy said.

**"Keeping tabs on you.**

**Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I**_**am**___**your friend."**

"Aww how cute" cooed Aphrodite.

Grover started blushing.

**"Urm ... what**_**are**___**you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

"I hate it when people don't answer my questions" Percy mock glared at Grover.

"Ok Seaweed Brain, we'll take special care to answer all your questions from now on, won't we Thalia?" said Annabeth, playing along.

"Of course, we can't afford offending Percy now can we, Nico" she continued.

"Wouldn't dream of it" finished Nico, grinning.

The gods looked amused by their antics.

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"Thanks a lot Percy, I feel so loved" mocked Grover.

"Any time" Percy grinned at him.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "**_**Blaa-ha-ha**_**!"**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a**_**goat**___**from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**"**_**Blaa-ha-ha**_**!** **There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**

"Been there done that" said a very bored Dionysus.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a**_**myth,**___**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you**_**admit**___**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Of course, you idiot" commented Zeus but was silenced by Poseidon's glares.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious.**

"You realize you made no sense to him at the time?" implored Athena.

Grover grinned sheepishly.

**"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"Us" replied Zeus and Hades in unison.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Why does everyone automatically assume it's me?" questioned Hades.

Nico had sense enough to start reading again.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"Thank the gods" muttered Annabeth.

"You're welcome" chorused Hermes and Apollo.

Hera rolled her eyes at them.

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in**_**me.**_**"**

**"I meant**_**you,**___**like 'someone.' Not you,**_**you.**_**"**

"Idiots" muttered Athena.

Poseidon and Annabeth however, looked pale and frightened.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

**I didn't know where**_**there**___**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really**_**hadn't**___**been human. She'd meant to kill me."**

"Well, _duh_!" said Nico.

"**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling**_**boom!,**___**and our car exploded."**

Everybody was at the edge of their seats while Annabeth gasped.

"**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors was wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in Lightning. That was the only explanation."**

Poseidon blasted Zeus with a large amount of sea water

Meanwhile, Annabeth was furiously muttering what sounded like "Please be okay, please be okay."

"**We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!"**

"Aww sweet" cooed all the goddesses, even Athena.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"Satyrs" Dionysus rolled his eyes while Grover blushed.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

"What now?" asked a very worried Poseidon.

"**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns."**

Annabeth gulped, clutching on to Percy's hand so hard that it became blue.

"**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

_**"What?"**_

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**_**"**_

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

Everyone visibly paled; this was not going to end well.

"**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You**_**are**___**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he**_**couldn't**___**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns…"**

"You don't say" said Nico, trying to break the tension.

**"He doesn't want**_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants**_**you.**___**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother,**** at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull."**

"This is not going to end well" informed Thalia.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

"Good boy, eating more cereal are we?" commented Demeter.

"**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of**_**Muscle Man**___**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—** **I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—"**

Everyone chuckled despite the tension.

"**which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real."**

"Oh but he is" stated Nico.

"Thank you captain obvious" said Thalia.

"**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said."**

"Smart woman, names have power." Athena approved.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch,**_

Suddenly, Hermes and Apollo burst out laughing but were soon silenced by everyone's glares.

"**I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"That was a good plan" Percy recalled.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass."**

"No" Annabeth whispered.

"**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air."**

"Sally!" Poseidon yelled.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone."**

"HOW COULD YOU?" Poseidon screamed, Hades was visibly shaking.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"Like father like son" Hera said, trying to lighten the mood.

"**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists."**

"**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all."**

"That's the spirit!" Ares cheered.

"**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that."**

"Of course not." Artemis said.

"**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck."**

"Impressive." admitted Zeus.

"**How did I do that?**

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils."**

The goddesses gagged.

"**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,** **and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!"**_

"_Nice_!"

"**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart."**

"He's a natural" said Annabeth smiling at Percy.

"**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go."**

Annabeth was silently crying.

"**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's."**

"Aww" cooed Thalia while Percy blushed.

"**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

Aphrodite's suspicions had now been confirmed.

"That is the end of the chapter" Nico said.

Everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'll read." Artemis offered.

**A/N: Another chapter! So what did you think of it? Review and let me know what you think.**


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